JamesThere's a very clear answer to which is more effective, #charity or #volunteering—but then it turns out to be more complicated than it first appears... in a good way. TL;DR everyone has the power to do good.
TruckWoman@nonzerosumjames very interesting... and, even more so, I followed the link to moral licensing ... you give an example of making automatic charitable payments to offset the license to behave badly later, but I would like to suggest that giving your time as a volunteer is perhaps different, because it (potentially) becomes less about altruism and gives something to the volunteer beyond feeling virtuous: creating more insight/empathy/compassion which might then have an impact on future behaviour?
@2ruth This is a really good point, and is something I considered when travelling to Tanzania to volunteer, I was partly going to create a connection and an obligation for me personally (which has sustained almost 20 years later). At the time there was a song along the same lines by Brooke Fraser with the line "now that I have seen, I am responsible", I took that to heart.
It's a good point and the post is due a follow up, where I'll include this perspective.
@nonzerosumjames cool, I look forward to reading it 😊
Daniel Milne@nonzerosumjames
Interesting. Peter Singer had a point about morality in industrial society. Also through the 1980s I amongst many actively made sure I did not spend any of my money in a way that paid for the South African system. I like to think we helped. Now I watch very carefully where any money I spend ends up. No palm oil etc. this is a moral and political choice. There is a lot to think about in our present circumstance, lots to be considered. Complacency is not an option.
Interesting. Peter Singer had a point about morality in industrial society. Also through the 1980s I amongst many actively made sure I did not spend any of my money in a way that paid for the South African system. I like to think we helped. Now I watch very carefully where any money I spend ends up. No palm oil etc. this is a moral and political choice. There is a lot to think about in our present circumstance, lots to be considered. Complacency is not an option.
@danielmipne Wise man.
There's a great episode in "The Good Place" that deals with this, when they realise no one is getting enough "points" to get into heaven because there are so many hidden evils we can be a part of if we are in the slightest bit complacent.
Arthur Flenyo@nonzerosumjames I think there is one more thing that the article fails to take into account. It's the fact that poverty and homelessness are perpetuated by the system on a daily basis. Simply engaging in charity work and volunteering is, after all, treating the symptom rather than the disease. So a good persons shouldn't get stuck at this stage, but should go further and consider how we can also help bring about systemic change so that poverty and wars (or whatever you're trying to fix with these two methods) could be overcome. This would be the only effective way. It doesn't mean that we have to give up charity/volunteering. I'm just saying that by doing these two things alone, you just help the system to exist, saying "we're allowing you to do bad things to people, because we will fix them (but only to a small % of people, who suffer from it every day)".
There's a very good article by Leo Tolstoy on that topic called "What Shall We Do?", chapter 15, where he analyzes our good-person-ness. I would recommend it to read.